The Ultimate 0L gunner guide Forum

[ns77770]

Seems like there are a massive amount of supplement/treatise options for each subject.. can anyone in here list what they believe the best are for both first and second semester subjects of 1L year? Thanks.

I think, honestly, it's different for everyone.

The supplements recommended most often in these threads include:

Glannon's Civ Pro E&E + the Glannon Guide
Chirelstein on Contracts (The Boat Book)
The Torts E&E (or the Glannon Guide to Torts)
Understanding Criminal Law by Joshua Dressler
The Property E&E or Understanding Property (Sprankling)
Chemerinsky's Constitutional Law Treatise

Those are the biggies. Personally, I never got much use out of the E&Es. I used the "Understanding" series instead: Civil Procedure (Freer & Raven-Hansen) and Torts (Diamond). For Contracts, we used the Farnsworth casebook, so I went to the library and read the relevant sections in Farnsworth's treatise.

Before you buy any supplements, I HIGHLY recommend waiting a couple of class periods into the semester, then hitting the library to see which supplement you like best. If your teacher recommends any in particular (or even better, wrote one), that's the supplement you should buy. Otherwise, review a couple of options to see which ones are organized in a fashion that makes sense to you (compare to your syllabus). That way, when you finally buy a supplement for each class, you're buying one that is actually going to be helpful. I don't even want to talk about all the money I wasted first semester -- I ended up with two or three supplements for each class because the ones I bought initially were basically worthless.

Cool thanks

[JusticeHarlan]

2 of the people at my top 10 with some of the highest GPA's in the entire class taught themselves torts before they reached law school. They raped everyone else who took the subject with them.

Good thing you don't go to Northwestern.

I've said it a million times, but law school is very counter-intuitive. For example, people who didn't do well first semester said "I gotta work harder this semester". WRONG. They need to work smarter, not harder. And this often involves working LESS than before, since you are more efficient and only studying the right things. And thats just one example where the typical smart person thinks that something is obvious and intuitive, yet the reality is the opposite.

These 0L's should be learning about law school exams, sprucing up resumes, making cover letter templates, calling alumni of their schools and networking as much as possible and as often as possible, becoming better and faster at typing, taking time to reflect on themselves and not going into law school blindly, reading every "success in law school" thread they can find to gather all the helpful info available, etc. These are the things that come before substantive preparation that will likely go to waste. The above things are GUARANTEED to help you in law school, and they should absolutely take priority. These things will be what give you guys the advantage over the "smart" kids who blindly reach for the prep books.

Fantastic post.

[Emma.]

These 0L's should be learning about law school exams, sprucing up resumes, making cover letter templates, calling alumni of their schools and networking as much as possible and as often as possible, becoming better and faster at typing, taking time to reflect on themselves and not going into law school blindly, reading every "success in law school" thread they can find to gather all the helpful info available, etc. These are the things that come before substantive preparation that will likely go to waste. The above things are GUARANTEED to help you in law school, and they should absolutely take priority. These things will be what give you guys the advantage over the "smart" kids who blindly reach for the prep books.

Credited as usual, AC

[afc1910]

...

[aliarrow]

So... is this thread serious or not?

[nodummy]

calling alumni of their schools and networking as much as possible and as often as possible, becoming better and faster at typing, taking time to reflect on themselves and not going into law school blindly, reading every "success in law school" thread they can find to gather all the helpful info available, etc. These are the things that come before substantive preparation that will likely go to waste. The above things are GUARANTEED to help you in law school, and they should absolutely take priority. These things will be what give you guys the advantage over the "smart" kids who blindly reach for the prep books.

Can anyone calrify this point (see bold text)? Do you recommend just calling alumni and introducing yourself as a future 1L? Or what's the best way to go about this? Thanks.

[dakatz]

calling alumni of their schools and networking as much as possible and as often as possible, becoming better and faster at typing, taking time to reflect on themselves and not going into law school blindly, reading every "success in law school" thread they can find to gather all the helpful info available, etc. These are the things that come before substantive preparation that will likely go to waste. The above things are GUARANTEED to help you in law school, and they should absolutely take priority. These things will be what give you guys the advantage over the "smart" kids who blindly reach for the prep books.

Can anyone calrify this point (see bold text)? Do you recommend just calling alumni and introducing yourself as a future 1L? Or what's the best way to go about this? Thanks.

I typically send out emails to alumni in which I mention that I will be attending their school. I tell them how I love hearing from alumni to hear about their experiences at the school and in the legal profession, and find out if they have any pointers or advice. Sometimes I don't get responses, but those who get back to me are usually happy to speak with me and chat about their experience. Lawyers spend all day doing work and under stress so I think they appreciate a few minutes to reminisce about their law school years, and a chance to help out students. They would often give me their phone numbers and we would set up a time to chat. Sometimes my calls would go for 10 minutes, and sometimes an hour. I follow up with emails to those I become friendly with. This is the kind of thing that nearly no gunner will think to do. So when exam time rolls around and everyone is applying to jobs, you just might get lucky and have a contact pull some strings for you, or at least put in a good word for you. By virtue of this, you will have more time to study for exams. Unlike 0L prep, which is questionable at best, having more time to take practice exams is THE BEST way to improve your grades. So anything that will clear your plate come exam time should be your top priority.

[nodummy]

Great. Can you delete this so more people don't see it? I'd really like keeping this solid advice under wraps...

[dakatz]

Great. Can you delete this so more people don't see it? I'd really like keeping this solid advice under wraps...

Lol just make an anonymous post about how you read every supplement and hornbook during 0L summer and how it got you straight A's. Thats apparently what every 0L wants to hear so they will gravitate to it like fireflies, and then wave it around in the face of the 99% of actual law school students advocating the opposite. Then you can sit around and diabolically snicker like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYDkGJmS ... re=related

[aliarrow]

Great. Can you delete this so more people don't see it? I'd really like keeping this solid advice under wraps...

Lol just make an anonymous post about how you read every supplement and hornbook during 0L summer and how it got you straight A's. Thats apparently what every 0L wants to hear so they will gravitate to it like fireflies, and then wave it around in the face of the 99% of actual law school students advocating the opposite. Then you can sit around and diabolically snicker like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYDkGJmS ... re=related

But how come in other threads 0L Networking gets laughed at?

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 3&t=141798

[paulinaporizkova]

But how come in other threads 0L Networking gets laughed at?

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 3&t=141798

one person saying lol =/= "getting laughed at" in a general sense

[aliarrow]

But how come in other threads 0L Networking gets laughed at?

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 3&t=141798

one person saying lol =/= "getting laughed at" in a general sense

But they sounded so certain in their lol

[paulinaporizkova]

But how come in other threads 0L Networking gets laughed at?

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 3&t=141798

one person saying lol =/= "getting laughed at" in a general sense

But they sounded so certain in their lol

yeah and most people on this site have no idea what they're talking about but they all sound very certain about what they think they know

[Veyron]

calling alumni of their schools and networking as much as possible and as often as possible, becoming better and faster at typing, taking time to reflect on themselves and not going into law school blindly, reading every "success in law school" thread they can find to gather all the helpful info available, etc. These are the things that come before substantive preparation that will likely go to waste. The above things are GUARANTEED to help you in law school, and they should absolutely take priority. These things will be what give you guys the advantage over the "smart" kids who blindly reach for the prep books.

Can anyone calrify this point (see bold text)? Do you recommend just calling alumni and introducing yourself as a future 1L? Or what's the best way to go about this? Thanks.

I typically send out emails to alumni in which I mention that I will be attending their school. I tell them how I love hearing from alumni to hear about their experiences at the school and in the legal profession, and find out if they have any pointers or advice. Sometimes I don't get responses, but those who get back to me are usually happy to speak with me and chat about their experience. Lawyers spend all day doing work and under stress so I think they appreciate a few minutes to reminisce about their law school years, and a chance to help out students. They would often give me their phone numbers and we would set up a time to chat. Sometimes my calls would go for 10 minutes, and sometimes an hour. I follow up with emails to those I become friendly with. This is the kind of thing that nearly no gunner will think to do. So when exam time rolls around and everyone is applying to jobs, you just might get lucky and have a contact pull some strings for you, or at least put in a good word for you. By virtue of this, you will have more time to study for exams. Unlike 0L prep, which is questionable at best, having more time to take practice exams is THE BEST way to improve your grades. So anything that will clear your plate come exam time should be your top priority.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Lets just keep this under wraps, shall we.

[beachbum]

But how come in other threads 0L Networking gets laughed at?

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 3&t=141798

one person saying lol =/= "getting laughed at" in a general sense

But they sounded so certain in their lol

yeah and most people on this site have no idea what they're talking about but they all sound very certain about what they think they know

haha, this is definitely credited

[lhlee]

ANd here I thought I should do this..

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 11&t=71544

[thecilent]

ANd here I thought I should do this..

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 11&t=71544

Everything in there does seem pretty cr. Doing that shizz would def give you an edge imo

[aliarrow]

I finally remembered the thread I was referencing earlier. He/She was the top of a T2, not T30, but transferred to HYS. 0L Prep is first mentioned on the last post of the first page.
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 7&t=150601

[thecilent]

I finally remembered the thread I was referencing earlier. He/She was the top of a T2, not T30, but transferred to HYS. 0L Prep is first mentioned on the last post of the first page.
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 7&t=150601

ty

[3ThrowAway99]

I don't know about ultimate gunner guide... To be a true gunner you must also:


1) Dominate class discussion while visiting law schools during visiting student days, or at least dominate the orientation week lectures with questions and arguments directed at the professors.

2) Practice asking off topic questions and talking for 5 minutes on some stuff that is tangentially related to the tangential questions.

3) Really and truly believe that law school success is just a matter of how hard you work.

4) Take practice tests the summer before law school and at the very beginning of your first semester... I'm sure it will help.

5) Go to law school planning on transferring up- even if you go to T14.

[northwood]

when you do transfer- let everyone know that you will be number 1 at your new school ( and it has to be either HYS or top 6).

[thecilent]

I don't know about ultimate gunner guide... To be a true gunner you must also:


1) Dominate class discussion while visiting law schools during visiting student days, or at least dominate the orientation week lectures with questions and arguments directed at the professors.

2) Practice asking off topic questions and talking for 5 minutes on some stuff that is tangentially related to the tangential questions.

3) Really and truly believe that law school success is just a matter of how hard you work.

4) Take practice tests the summer before law school and at the very beginning of your first semester... I'm sure it will help.

5) Go to law school planning on transferring up- even if you go to T14.

TBF, I have heard #4 being recommending. Maybe not the veryyy beginning, but not long after.

Also: I think a lot of the "gunner" term being thrown around on these boards now doesn't refer to the annoying gunner shizz that doesn't help, but rather excessive shit that doesss help you succeed.
/0L

[crossingforHYS]

I would never tag this page.

[gothamm]

when you do transfer- let everyone know that you will be number 1 at your new school ( and it has to be either HYS or top 6).

you would be surprised. I know someone attending berk this fall who is intent on transferring to H

[northwood]

im sure there are plenty of people who think they will be number 1